The Declaration of the Rights of the Venice Lagoon emerged from a citizen-led process that took place during 2024 and 2025, developed by a network of dozens of associations and institutions, as well as over a hundred citizens. It was drafted through citizen assemblies and private meetings, in which Barena Bianca participated from the outset. […]

Subsoil and ocean exploitation, political and military conflicts over expanding territorial waters, and privatization of common goods cause not only environmental but also cultural damage: devaluing, erasing, and eventually forgetting ancient production techniques. Diverse local knowledges indeed emerge from territorial specificities, but are being eroded everywhere to make way for standardized techniques linked to industrial […]

Lagoon guerrilla gardening project on the occasion of the bragora festival / sagra prodiga in Venice. Algae clay, soil, water and seeds of halophytic plants and flowers stuck together in and around the square by the canals for a wild and invasive (herbal) Venice.

Sguazziamo! (“Let’s splash!”) is a river ecology workshop developed in the context of Fare Acqua, the fourth edition of Traffic Festival, on the banks of the Cesano river, in the Marche region. The idea starts from the ancient game of “Pesca al contrario” (reverse fishing), in which the child in the centre impersonates a fish […]

Piantagruèl is a participatory process initiated by Meta Forte with Barena Bianca, Tocia! and Spontaneus Lab in the northern part of the Venetian Lagoon in 2021. The 2022 edition sees the addition of other initiatives in the Venetian environment such as We are here Venice and Prometheus Open Food Lab. Through excursions, workshops, meetings with […]

“How is it there? Here…”, part of the global program WE ARE OCEAN, is a critical geography workshop for the kids of Venice and for anyone around the world living with similar issues, such as environmental degradation of wetlands and growing pollution levels in both the air and the water, coastal erosion, subsidence and increasingly […]

Muevete Muevete Barena was a didactic happening produced by We Are Here Venice that took place in Venice from Palazzo delle Zattere (V-A-C Foundation) to Campo Santo Stefano. 60 venetian children (fifth grade of Scuola Elementare B. Canal) were invited to realize a festive parade bringing with them a 30-meters long “anti-mimetic” textile support with […]

Barena Primavera-Estate was a workshop developed in collaboration with Giorgia Cereda and produced and coordinated by We Are Here Venice. During the World’s Ocean Day, 20 Venetian kids recycled old shirts, about to be abandoned, in order to become living symbols of the Lagoon. Each kid composed his own image on the clay tablet before […]